COOS BAY — Coos Bay School officials have laid the groundwork for a bond campaign to rebuild an unused elementary school, enlarge an existing one and tear down one of the district’s oldest buildings.

The Schools for the Future Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a recommendation to the School Board for a $59.8 million bond measure. If passed, it would provide funds to resurrect Eastside Elementary School, add eight classrooms to Madison Elementary School and make renovations to every building in the district.

Every building, that is, except Harding Learning Center.

Because repairs to the 1920s-era building were deemed too expensive, the committee suggested the district should demolish it. Most of the district’s alternative learning programs would then be relocated to the Bunker Hill Elementary School, which would have been vacated by students in favor of the Eastside site.

Student-shuffling wouldn’t end there. With eight new classrooms, Madison would be able to take about 100 students from Blossom Gulch Elementary School. Vacated classrooms at Blossom Gulch could then serve alternative learning programs if not enough space was available at Bunker Hill.

All these changes still depend on a vote by the School Board, which could discuss the matter as early as its next meeting on Dec. 10, and approval by the electorate.

Committee co-chairman Ron Opitz said the committee’s decision was primarily motivated by a phone survey of residents and an increase in the cost estimates of repairs.

Residents were asked if they would support a $75 million bond measure to rebuild three elementary schools and if they would support a $36.6 million measure to enlarge Madison and make repairs to other schools.

About 46 percent said they would favor the first measure, while 55 supported the second.

The survey also indicated strong support for the reopening of Eastside and moving students from Bunker Hill.

One thing was clear, at least to Opitz.

“You are not going to sell a $75 million bond measure in Coos Bay,” he said. “We are not going to be able to sell three new elementary schools. It’s not going to happen this year, next year or what ...”

This thinking was further reinforced when DLR Group, the district’s structural consultants, were asked to revise their cost estimates. Originally, the figures presented in the survey were based with an assumption that work would be halfway completed by 2008. By setting the halfway point to February 2010, the $36.6 million project was reassessed at $45 million and the $75 million was reset at $93 million.  

Given the two choices, Opitz didn’t like either of them.

“Forty-five wouldn’t accomplish enough,” he said.

So Superintendent Bob De La Vergne, Business Manager Rod Danielson and Maintenance Manager Joel Smallwood spoke with Opitz and co-chairman Bob Huggins and reached a solution.

With support for a return to Eastside, they figured it made sense to build a new school there.

“Closing Eastside was a hard, emotional decision, and I think it will revitalize a lot of confidence in the district,” Opitz said.

But the cost of rebuilding the elementary school, about $20 million, would put the districts costs over $65 million. This was considered to be too close to the amount many phone survey participants shunned.

Looking at ways to cut expenses, the officials saw that repairs and modernization costs at Harding ran to about $7.3 million, second only to Marshfield High School (see sidebar). It seemed the logical place to cut.

“It is not in good shape,” Opitz said. “It’s a monster to heat and cool and ventilate. There’s a lot of costs that would go into that building that could go into a new elementary school.”

So rather than making repairs for $7.4 million, the district would spend $1.3 million to tear it down.

“(Those programs) aren’t going away, they are just changing locations,” Opitz said.

Danielson said one program at Harding that might be relocated to Marshfield High School is the school-based health clinic. A possible site might be the location where the temporary radio tower is located, he said.

No one objected to the idea of leveling Harding Learning Center, despite its historical significance.

“I think your idea is right on,” said Board Member Don Blom. “While I like the nostalgia (of Harding), those buildings have a lot of problems.”

But some still thought funding could be acquired to rebuild Blossom Gulch or Madison.

Board Member Wally Hazen argued the cost estimates for rebuilding Blossom Gulch provided by DLR were too high. And Board Member Andy Post ventured that voters might be willing to go for more than $60 million.

“I just don’t think it’s impossible at $75 million,” he said.

Hazen suggested the district could propose a larger bond measure and if it failed, float a smaller one.

But Hazen and Post’s thinking was in the minority, as most committee members didn’t want to propose a bond measure that would fail.

“If we don’t pass a bond, we will have imprinted the notion of no in the voting public,” Opitz said.

As for Blossom Gulch, De La Vergne said he spoke with a number of people in the community who were against investing money in that site. Smallwood said the land at Blossom Gulch will continue to settle forever. But renovations proposed by the district should keep the building useable for at least 15 years, he said.

Besides the bond measure, the committee also recommended a line item of $200,000 that would serve as seed money to construct a roof over the south stands at Pete Susick Stadium. Suggested by De La Vergne, he said the stadium improvement would be saved until all other projects were completed. But he insisted it was important to demonstrate to the community the district’s dedication to finishing a project it started. He noted that Reedsport recently passed a bond measure by marketing repairs as a way to show pride in its schools.

“We have an issue of bringing pride back to our schools,” he said. “We have to be a good steward of our schools.”

If the $59.8 million bond measure passed, residents would likely see an increase of about $2.30 per $1,000 of assessed value, based on a scenario presented by a representative from Seattle-Northwest Securities Corp.

In the presentation, that scenario called for a 20-year bond and a 30-year bond, so the tax impact in the 21st year would only by $.88 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Hazen argued the district should look at having one bond set for 15 years because he expected the district would need to ask for more money around then. But that discussion was left for the School Board.

The district has long targeted the November 2008 election as an appropriate date to propose a bond measure. If passed, the district would likely begin construction in the summer of 2009, Smallwood said.